End of the rainbow

[BSWP]

My wife has been running RBW speedblends on her B'Stone XO-5 for several years, the tires came to me when I bought the 66cm QuickBeam, and had not been sold by Riv for a long time. She got nothing but positive comments on them, and it was always fun watching them "pulse" while riding alongside her. Alas, today, the rear breathed its last, and exhaled, loudly, so loudly that the crew at Hank & Frank & YankYerChain on College came running out to see what the noise was. I cannot save them, not even with a dollar bill rolled into the tire, so she's now on a fresh set of 38mm Soma C-Lines and fresh tubes.

Thank you, dear SpeedBlends, it's been swell: https://www.flickr.com/photos/cyclemoss/30499563285/in/dateposted-public/

- Andrew, Berkeley

[Lungimsam]

Looks like dry rot blowout?
I thought the Rivendell speed blends had checkerboard treads?
Are those Pasela?
Some people love Pasela but I have read many times on the Internet where owners complained of sidewall blowout.

Anyway, could you see different colors while riding? Could you see different colors at different speeds?

[Fullylugged]

Sorry that yours finally reached the end of the road, so to speak. I have a fresh set (got them and shelved them for years) on a TREK 660 conversion I did and they always bring smiles from others on rides.

The tires are Nifty Swifties with the color inserts on a sidewall. They came in two varieties of color pattern iirc. Mine has 7 panels (ROYGBIV) evenly divided around the sidewall on just one side of the tires.

[Jack K]

If Fullylugged's set only has color on one side, then there must have been at least 2 versions. I just recently sold a set I'd been hoarding for years. They had color on both sides of the tire and the checkerboard tread pattern.

-Jack

[BSWP]

The ones we have are 700x35 Panaracer Paselas, but branded as RBW SpeedBlends, with "checkerboard" colour patterns:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/cyclemoss/29888041973/in/dateposted-public/
https://www.flickr.com/photos/cyclemoss/29888041333/in/dateposted-public/

Yes, we're sad to see them go, but the sidewalls were deteriorating, and I won't risk her being stuck with another blowout that fresh tires might prevent. And the Soma C-Lines (another Panaracer Pasela tread tire) look pretty good on her black XO-5 with brown Brooks spring saddle.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/cyclemoss/30222733150/in/dateposted-public/

- Andrew, Berkeley